Stands a Shadow (36 page)

Sweet Dao, we might still reach her yet
.

With the mortar shells continuing to fall down before them, shattering the enemy lines in confusion, Bahn experienced a momentary spike of hope.

If only Halahan can hold on to that ridge
.

‘Colonel Halahan!’

‘I see it, Staff Sergeant.’

The Mannians were trying to attack from the other side of the ridge, the southern side away from the battle. He’d been expecting that for some time. A dozen Greyjackets were positioned there, crouched behind a low wall of snow and whatever dirt they’d been able to scrape up from the ground. They aimed their rifles and fired down on the enemy troops that scrabbled up the slope towards them.

A hail of rifle shots crackled back in reply. A Greyjacket tumbled backwards. The defenders managed another volley, and then they were drawing their shortswords to meet the attack.

The rest of the ridge was a similar scene of dispute, every flank hard pressed.

On the east flank, across the waist of the ridge, the surviving Greyjackets stood in two ranks and chopped and shoved against seemingly endless numbers of Ghazni regulars. They were exhausted, and being forced back step by step.

On the northern side, the majority of Greyjackets fought hand-to-hand against more infantry climbing the slope. Behind them, in the centre of the ridge, the mortar crews maintained their fire as fast as they could, though their supply of shells was starting to run low.

Watch it
.

A Mannian broke through from the southern side where the newest attack had been launched. Colonel Halahan took the man in the chest with a shot from his pistol. He reloaded the piece as he studied the buckling lines, looking for areas of stress and weakness, judging tensions, breaking points, knots of strength, as an artisan might inspect the materials of his craft.

The lines were too damned thin. Two more Imperials broke through from the south. The colonel fired his pistol, yanked out another with his other hand, cocked it and fired that too. They were going to break at any moment, and after that the men across the waist would fold, and the rest of them would be finished.

‘Staff Sergeant Jay! Five men from the mortars to support the waist. Another five to the south.’

It was all he could do; if he relieved the mortar crews of any more men, their effect on the Mannian lines would be minimal.

Halahan leaned on his good leg as he drew life back into his pipe. He wondered if it was the last time he would experience the simple pleasure of a smoke. He hoped not, for the taste of it was bitter in his mouth just then.

Strange how his own mood could do that.

Halahan grunted. It seemed he was fated never to defeat these people.

Sergeant Jay was shouting something from the northern side of the ridge. Halahan turned and saw Imperials breaking through all along the line. The staff sergeant was laying into them left and right with his curved Nathalese tulwar as he yelled back over his shoulder. Halahan took aim and fired, sending an imperial beside the sergeant spinning away. He swung around in instinct, drawing another pistol and cocking it as he twisted, pointed it over his shoulder at a soldier rushing at him with a raised sword. Halahan pulled the trigger.

The firing arm snapped down, but nothing happened.

Halahan was too old to gape at such a surprise. He swerved a wild slash of the sword and punched the barrel of the gun into the man’s throat. His eyes saw him go down, but his mind was already taking in the line to the south.

It was collapsing too.

‘Hold tight!’ he roared around the stem of his pipe, fighting an urge to rush to the aid of his men. He discharged his fifth pistol into a soldier attacking the remaining mortar crews in the centre. He tossed it aside and drew out his last gun.

This is it, then
, he thought grimly to himself.
At least we took the fight to the bastards for once
.

‘Colonel!’

Staff Sergeant Jay stood panting in exhaustion on the northern flank. All of the Greyjackets there were panting hard, steam rising off their bodies, swords dripping, looking down the slope. Somehow they’d fought off the attack.

Halahan left the desperate melee behind to step over and join them.

On the slope amongst the trees, black-garbed figures struggled upwards stabbing through the remaining Imperials as they climbed; Specials, all of them.

For an instant, Halahan was indeed surprised.

Hands reached down to aid the new arrivals. Faces appeared out of the night’s gloom, filthy, grim, wide-eyed. Perhaps forty in all, many of them wounded.

‘Glad you could make it,’ said Halahan as he pulled a woman to the top.

‘Glad to be here,’ she replied without breath.

‘Any officers?’

‘Dead,’ she told him.

Typical that, of the Specials, for their officers always led from the front. Halahan faced the newcomers. ‘Quickly, now. Those who can fight, spread out to support the lines. We are required to hold this ridge for as long as we can.’

Every one of them moved into a position of defence. In moments the lines stabilized and the remaining attacks were repulsed, save for the continuing thrust along the waist. At least they were holding their ground now.

Along all sides of the ridge, bodies were rolled against the makeshift walls to strengthen the defences.

‘Well done, Staff Sergeant.’

‘Thank you,’ said the old smith, dabbing at a cut on his brow.

‘Pull back those who need a few minutes to rest. See to the wounded, and pass out some water.’

The sergeant nodded, eyeing the Specials spread out amongst them. He leaned towards Halahan.

Quietly, he said, ‘You know that if they attack again, it still won’t be enough?’

‘I know it. But let’s keep that to ourselves for now, shall we?’

Now that Curl was within the relative protection of the main Khosian force, and had time to look about her, to think and feel, she found that terror was beginning swamping her.

It was no longer even the madness of the violence, nor the risk to her own life. No, it was her proximity to these soldiers of Mann, just on the other side of the chartassa – some even running amok within the formation. They were the same men who had gutted her people and laid her homeland to ash and waste.

Curl was ashamed of the fear they instilled in her; it was beyond reason, something primal in it like fear of darkness. It was appalling, this power they still held over her.

With haste she finished fitting Bahn’s wounded arm into a sling. It was good to stand next to him, a familiar face in the storm. The man was frightened too, she could see.

‘Thank you,’ he told her as he inspected the sling.

‘Have it seen to properly when you can,’ she told him.

They looked at each other for a moment, something unspoken passing between them. Bahn opened his mouth to speak, but then his eyes flicked to the side, and she saw it too – a squad of imperial soldiers behind their lines, one of them tossing a grenade in their direction.Someone shouted a warning. Bahn launched himself at Curl. His arms wrapped around her, and then a bang knocked the senses out of her and she was engulfed in a wash of cold air, and then a hot blast.

She was lying on her back with the wind knocked out of her, and Bahn pressing against her body.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m all right.’

But his eyes were closed. She couldn’t feel him breathing.

With a shove she pushed him off her and onto his back. His left cheek was torn open. Blood leaked from the ear on that side. Another man lay close by them, his eyes staring blankly at the night sky.

‘Bahn!’ she shouted as she checked his pulse. It was hard to find, but it was there, faintly beating.

She was fumbling for her bag when General Creed himself came stamping towards her with his bodyguards trying to keep up. ‘Is he alive?’

‘Barely!’ she shouted back.

The general glanced across to where an officer was calling out to him. He returned his attention to Bahn sprawled on the ground.

‘Look after this one, you hear me!’

She nodded her head. Creed took one last look at Bahn then strode off towards the officer. ‘Look after him, you hear?’

‘Matriarch,’ said the captain of her honour guard. ‘We should withdraw to a safer position. You are exposed here.’

The captain was right. Sasheen was deep within the imperial lines, a position she’d sought for good reason.

‘Captain. When we win this battle I do not wish it to be said that I sat and watched it from the rear. You are my bodyguards. Protect me.’

Ché listened to the exchange with interest. They stood in a clear space of field between the multitude of formations still to be employed in the fighting, and those in front already embroiled in the action.

The Khosians were edging ever closer.

Archgeneral Sparus had been beckoned to her side some moments earlier. He came now on foot, trailed by his own retinue of officers.

‘Can’t you stop them, Archgeneral?’ Sasheen demanded, sitting astride her zel as she considered the scene ahead. ‘I thought they were nearly finished?’

Sparus looked up at her with his bloodshot eye, like a man long ready for his bed. ‘They are, Matriarch. But they have mortar crews holding a superior firing position on the ridge to the south.’ He pointed for her benefit. ‘They fire down upon our forward lines. It allows them progress.’

‘Then
retake
the ridge and have us finish this.’

He hid his annoyance well. ‘We’re trying to, Matriarch. It will be ours again presently.’

She waved a hand to dismiss him, and Sparus gave a curt nod of his head.

Ché turned his back on it all. Behind them the fresh infantry was standing impatiently, waiting for their turn to join the fight. They seemed eager to get this business finished too. It was cold in that armour of theirs on this frozen valley floor. Many were likely hung over, or at least still tired from being awakened so rudely from their sleep.

As a R
ō
shun, and then as a Diplomat, Ché had been trained to spot the important details first. Something drew his attention now, and he squinted between the formations of men at a lone Acolyte moving towards the Matriarch’s position.

It took Ché a moment to become conscious of what was wrong with the image. The man wore leather leggings beneath his robe.

Ché’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

Ash was close.

He could see the Matriarch astride her white zel, a golden mask over her face, surrounded by white-robes and mounted bodyguards and her standard hanging above them. His eyes narrowed.

He marched along the edge of a waiting square of men. Deserted camp equipment and trampled pup tents lay scattered across ground that had been churned into a filthy mush. He strode through the remnants of a campfire, scattering ashes and still-glowing embers. His hand closed around the hilt of his sword as he neared the outer ring of Acolytes gathered about the Matriarch.

Behind Sasheen, off to one side of the white-robes, a young Acolyte stood watching Ash.

Ash stopped.

The man drew his blade and stepped out to meet him.

As the Khosians pushed closer towards the Matriarch’s position, the imperial light infantry of the Eighty-First Predasa – less hardened auxiliaries in the main, freshly returned from garrison duty in the northern hinterlands, all of them now sober, tired, and positioned in the thick of the action next to a hardcore of Acolytes – decided that losing over half of their numbers to mortar fire and grenades, including most of their officers, was too much to tolerate for a single night, and decided to beat a retreat to safer ground.

They broke, in fact, when the largest and fiercest of their number, Cunnse of the northern tribes, there for the money and little else, threw aside his shield and sword and shoved his way back through the loosening ranks, shouting that enough was enough, it was time for someone else to meet the slaughter. It took only a moment for the rest to follow his lead.

In no time they were rushing back towards the lines behind them, back towards where the Matriarch was positioned. Others in the fore joined them, retreating from the concussions of mortars raining down from the overlooking ridge.

Ché was shoved from behind by this sudden surge of men as he tried to stride forwards.

He fell, rolling through the muck as he held fast to his sword. When he regained his feet he saw men flooding past Sasheen’s position. Her Acolytes and mounted bodyguards struggled to shove them aside or back into the fray. Swords swung, felling some of them – dead men being better than routing ones.

Ché looked back. He could no longer see the impostor in the sudden milling press of bodies.

What am I doing
? he demanded of himself.

He had more urgent matters at hand. The Khosians were fast approaching the Matriarch’s position, who sat shocked on her jittery white zel with its tail dyed a pretty black.